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Evaluation of status of commercial ﬁ sh stocks in European marine subareas using mean trophic levels of ﬁ sh landings and spawning stock biomass

R.P. Prabath K. Jayasinghe

^a^,^b^,^c^,^*

, Upali S. Amarasinghe

^d

, Alice Newton

^c^,^e

aMarine Biological Resources Division, National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency, Crow Island, Colombo 15, Sri Lanka

bFundacion Universidad Empresa de la provincia de Cadiz (FUECA), University of Cadiz, 11003 Cadiz, Spain

cCIMA, Gambelas Campus, University of Algarve, Faro 8005-139, Portugal

dDepartment of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka

eNILU-IMPEC, Box 100, 2027 Kjeller, Norway

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 15 October 2015 Received in revised form 23 June 2016

Accepted 3 July 2016 Available online 15 July 2016 Keywords:

Mean trophic levels Landings

Spawning stock biomass Fish stocks

CFP MSFD

a b s t r a c t

Most of thefish stocks in the world, including Europeanfish stocks, are threatened by overfishing and/or degraded environmental conditions. Although the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is the main policy instrument managingfish stocks in Europe, there is continued concern as to whether commercialfish stocks will achieve Good Environmental Status (GEnS) in 2020 in accordance with the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). In this context, the evaluation of the status offish stocks in the subareas of FAOfishing area 27 was carried out using mean trophic levels (MTL) infish landings and spawning stock biomass (SSB). Comparisons were made before and after 2008 to establish whether the trend is positive or negative. The main data sources for landings andSSBwere the International Council for the Explo- ration of the Sea (ICES) advisory reports.MTLs in landing andSSBwere determined for each subarea and the subareas were categorized into four groups, according toMTLs after 2008. Thefirst group (subareas IþII, V) had higherMTLin landings and higherMTLinSSBafter 2008. Therefore,fisheries in these subareas appear sustainable. The second group was subareas VIIIþIX, for which thefish stocks have higherMTLin landings but lowMTLinSSB, indicating thatSSBwas being overfished. The third was subarea (VI), wherefish stocks have lowerMTLin landings than those inSSBafter 2008, which may indicate thatfish stocks are recovering. Fish stocks in the fourth group (subareas III, IV and VII) had low MTLin landings and theMTLinSSBwas lower than that of landings before 2008. This may be due to heavyfishing. In addition, we estimated the harvest rate (HR) of thefish stocks before and after 2008. The results showed that most of thefish stocks have lowerHRafter 2008, indicating that the status has improved, perhaps due to improvements in the implementation of CFP. However, some fish stocks showed highHReven after 2008, so that new management options are still needed. Other factors such as eutrophication, seafloor disturbances, marine pollution, invasive species etc., influenceSSBecosystem health options and should also be incorporated in the management criteria. Most of these environmental pressures are of high priority in the MSFD, and therefore thefindings of this study will be useful for both CFP and MSFD.

1. Introduction

The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is the main policy document

to manage Europeanfisheries resources. It was adopted in 1983 and has since been revised every 10 years (Aanesen et al., 2012). The latest version was approved by the European Parliament in 2013 (Pastoors, 2014). The mainmodus operandiof the CFP for managing fisheries is to decrease the fishing capacity (Villasante, 2010;

Gascuel et al., 2011). However, the very high fishing pressure exerted by EUfishingfleets has been insufficiently reduced by the CFP to achieve healthy stocks and maximum sustainable yield

*Corresponding author. Marine Biological Resources Division, National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency, Crow Island, Colombo 15, Sri Lanka.

E-mail addresses:[email protected](R.P.P.K. Jayasinghe),zoousa@

kln.ac.lk(U.S. Amarasinghe),[email protected](A. Newton).

Contents lists available atScienceDirect

Ocean & Coastal Management

j o u rn a l h o m e p a g e :w w w . e ls e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / o c e c o a m a n

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2016.07.002

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(MSY) (Villasante, 2010). Furthermore, the EU has a legal re- sponsibility under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to restorefish stocks by maintainingfishing mortality at a level of producing MSY that reached a critical milestone in 2015 (Froese and Proelß, 2010). As a further governance response, the European Marine Strategic Framework Directive (MSFD) was established in 2008 by European nations with coastal boarders (EU, 2008). The main objective of MSFD is to achieve good environmental status (GEnS) by 2020 through 11 qualitative descriptors (Borja et al., 2010; Foley, 2013). Descriptor number three (D3) addresses populations of commercially exploited fish/shellfish emphasizing that these should be within safe biological limits, while exhibiting population age and size distribution pertaining to healthy stocks (EU, 2008). Furthermore, Member States are responsible to conserve, improve and restore the marine ecosystems, includingfish populations, to achieve the UNCLOS milestone in conjunction with the CFP and MSFD.

Both the CFP (EU, 2013; Prellezo and Curtin, 2015) and MSFD (EU, 2008) use ecosystem-based management approaches.Garcia et al. (2003), Browman and Stergiou (2004) and Pauly et al.

(2002)have shown the importance of ecosystem-basedfisheries management (EBM) to obtain a sustainable harvest from marine fish stocks. Additionally, Brodziak and Link (2002) stated that maintaining a healthy trophic structure (food web) is one of the main objectives of EBM. Furthermore, trophic level based indicators are useful to understand complex interactions betweenfisheries and marine ecosystems (Pauly and Watson, 2005).

Pitcher et al. (2001)suggested that reinventingfisheries management where and when thefisheries are in a crisis, such as the current situation in European Regional Seas. The contention is that EBM directed towardsfisheries sustainability should rebuildfish communities, whereas the conventional fisheries management approaches do not reverse the depletedfisheries because of the over-exploitation of species of higher trophic levels (Pitcher et al., 2001). Thus, a fish community trophic level approach, in accordance with the EBM, would better fulfil the objectives of both the CFP and MSFD.

The present study was focused on how trophic level based indicators offisheries can be used to assess and manage EUfish stocks in marine subareas of FAO area 27, through the evaluation of the status of some commercially exploited fish stocks. The main objective of the study was to determine whether the adoption of new policy instruments (MSFD and CFP) are successfully reversing the negative trend offisheries. One difficulty is to set the threshold date for comparison of“before”and“after”effective implementation of policy instruments. Any date is arbitrary since the adoption of a policy is not the same as its effective implementation. However, we opted to compare pre and post 2008 data for the purposes of this study. After adoption of the MSFD, member states were mandated to draw up cost-effective plans by 2015, prior to the full implementation of the MSFD (Long, 2011). Additionally, the latest version CFP is effective from 1st January 2014, and hence we used data until 2013, to show the status offish stocks prior to the new version of the CFP. Thefindings of the present study may thus be useful to monitor the progress due to both the CFP and MSFD implementation.

The present study addresses the following research questions:

(i) Is there a change inﬁshing pressure over trophic levels in the context of the implementation of the policy instruments?

(ii) Areﬁsh stocks showing signs of recovery since 2008?

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Area,ﬁsh stocks and data sources 2.1.1. Study area

Sub areas of FAOﬁshing area 27 (Baltic and NE Atlantic) were selected for the present analysis (Fig. 1). Table 1 describes the marine subareas considered in this analysis.

2.1.2. Selection ofﬁsh stocks and data sources

Commercially importantﬁsh stocks that are listed in the Inter- national Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) advisory reports were selected for the present analysis. The species evaluated were cod (Gadus morhua), haddock (Melanogrammus aegleﬁnus), saithe (Pollachius virens), herring (Clupea harengus), sole (Solea solea), plaice (Pleuronectes platessa), whiting (Merlangius merlangius), hake (Merluccius merluccius) and sprat (Sprattus sprattus).

These stocks represent about 25% of theﬁsh stocks in the European region. They are considered as the most important in European commercialﬁsheries and these data are considered to be rich and reliable by ICES (Cardinale et al., 2013).

Data on fish landings and spawning stock biomass (SSB) of concernedfish stocks from the ICES scientific advisory reports for 2014 (http://www.ices.dk/community/advisory-process/Pages/

Latest-advice.aspx) were accessed on 20.10.2014 and used in the study. In these reports, catch data were available up to and including 2013.

2.2. Data analysis

2.2.1. Mean trophic levels in SSB andﬁsh landings in different subareas

Mean trophic levels (TL_i) ofﬁsh communities were calculated based on the feeding habits of constituent species and according to Equation(1)(Pauly and Palomares, 2005), which are reported in www.ﬁshbase.org(Froese and Pauly, 2014).

TL_i¼1þX

j

TL_j$DC_ij

(1)

whereTLjis trophic level of the preyjandDCijis the fraction ofjin the diet ofi. For the present analysis,TL_ivalues for the spawning stock biomass and landings of constituent species in theﬁshing areas (Table 1) were extracted from thewww.ﬁshbase.org(Froese and Pauly, 2014). Accordingly,TL_ivalues used in the analysis were 4.29 for cod, 3.56 for haddock, 3.61 for saithe, 3.29 for herring, 3.30 for sole, 3.23 for plaice, 3.57 for whiting, 3.84 for horse mackerel, 4.30 for hake and 3.01 for sprat (Jayasinghe et al., 2015).

Seven subareas (IþII, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIIIþIX) were considered, based on the availability of ICES advisory reports. For each area, the Mean trophic level for yeary(MTLy) was computed from 2009 to 2013 to observe whether there are any trends before and after the 2008. Thefish stocks that were considered for each subarea forMTL analysis are given inTable 2. The data availability of eachfish stock was inconsistent, and therefore, the analysis was performed for the periods when data were available for all fish stocks in several consecutive years before and after 2008. Accordingly, the analysis was for the periods commencing in 1960, 1991, 1990, 1987, 1992, 1987, and 1992 for the IþII, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIIIþIX subareas respectively, and until 2013. The formulae are given below.

MTLy¼X

i

TL_i$Y_iy, X

i

Y_iy (2)

R.P.P.K. Jayasinghe et al. / Ocean & Coastal Management 143 (2017) 154e163 155

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Fig. 1.Map of the FAO 27 area showing subareas where differentfish stocks analysed (modified afterhttp://www.fao.org/fishery/area/Area27/en).

Table 1

Fishing subareas (FAO 27) considered for data gathering from FishBase online database, and ICES advisory reports.

Area name Sub area number as shown in

Fig. 1

Barents Sea I

Norwegian Sea (IIa); Spitsbergen, and Bear Island (IIb) II

Skagerrak and Kattegat (IIIa); Sound, Belt Sea (III b, c) and Baltic Sea (IIId 24e32); the Sound and Belt (IIIc 22) together known also as the Transition Area

III

North Sea (Northern IVa); (Central Vb); (Southern IVc) IV

Iceland (Va); Faroes Grounds (Vb) V

Northwest Coast of Scotland and North Ireland or West of Scotland (VIa); Rockall (VIb) VI

Irish Sea (VIIa); West of Ireland (VIIb); Porcupine Bank (VIIc); Eastern (VIId) and Western (VIIe) English Channel; Bristol Channel (VIIf); Celtic Sea North (VIIg) and South (VIIh); and Southwest of IrelandeEast (VIIj) and West (VIIk)

VII Bay of Biscay (North VIIIa); (Central VIIIb); South (VIIIc); Offshore (VIIId); (West VIIIe) VIII

Portuguese Waters (East IXa); (West IXb) IX

Azores Grounds X

North of Azores XI

East Greenland (North XIVa); (South XIVb) XIV

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whereYiyis the catch of speciesi.

Similarly, theMTLinSSBwas estimated using Equation(3).

MTLðSSBÞ_y¼X

i

TL_i$SSB_iy, X

i

SSB_iy (3)

whereSSBiy is theSSBof speciesi (obtained from ICES advisory reports) in yeary.

TheMTLinﬁsh landings (L) is given by Equation(4).

MTLðLÞ_y¼X

i

TL_i$L_iy, X

i

L_iy (4)

whereL_iyis the landings of speciesi(obtained from ICES advisory reports) in yeary.

To determine whether theMTLin landings was high or low in each subarea after 2008, a reference level of MTL in 3.75 (Christensen et al., 2003) was used.

2.2.2. Difference between mean trophic levels in SSB andﬁsh landings

The difference of MTL (D) in ﬁsh landings [TL(L)y] and SSB [TL(SSB)y] was determined by following equation:

D¼MTLðLÞ_y MTLðSSBÞ_y (5)

Subareas showing higherMTLinSSBthan that in landings after 2008 were identiﬁed.

2.2.3. Categorization ofﬁshing subareas

The subareas were grouped based on theMTLin landings (high or low) and the difference betweenMTLinSSBandMTLof landings after 2008.

2.2.4. Distribution of MTL among SSB andﬁsh landings (L) before and after 2008

The following equations were used to analyze the effect of adopting theMSFDon tropic levels inSSBandﬁsh landings (L).

TL_iforSSBbeforeMSFD Mean SSB_TL_i¼X

SSB_TL_iðy12008Þ.

n_y (6)

TL_iforSSBafterMSFD Mean SSB_TL_i¼X

SSB_TLið20092013Þ

.

ny (7)

where SSB_TL_i is SSB of ﬁsh with trophic level i, y1 is ﬁrst data available year andnyis number of years.

TL_iforﬁsh landings beforeMSFD Mean L_TL_i¼X

L_TL_iðy12008Þ

.

ny (8)

TLiforﬁsh landings afterMSFD Mean L_TLi¼X

LTLið20092013Þ

.

ny (9)

whereL_TL_i is landings ofﬁsh with trophic level i,y1 isﬁrst data available year andnyis number of years.

2.2.5. Harvest rate ofﬁsh stocks before and after2008

The Harvest rate (HR) ofﬁsh stocks was calculated (Piet et al., 2010) forﬁsh stocks before and after 2008.

HRfor before 2008ðHRy12008Þ

¼X

L_iðy12008Þ. X

SSB_iðy12008Þ (10)

HRfor 20092013ðHRy20092013Þ

¼X

Lið20092013Þ

. XSSBið20092013Þ (11)

3. Results

3.1. MTL inﬁsh landings and SSB

HigherMTLvalues (>3.75) in the landings after 2008 were found forﬁshing subareas IþII, V and VIIIþIX (Fig. 2). Lower values of MTL(<3.75) in landings since 2008 were found in subareas III, IV, VI and VII (Fig. 2).

In addition, Fig. 2 illustrates that in most cases, theMTL in landings were higher than theMTLinSSB, showing the highﬁshing demand forﬁsh species of higher trophic levels. Nevertheless, the MTLinSSBexceeded theMTLin landings in some instances, in the subareas IþII, IV, V, VI and VII (Fig. 2).

3.2. Differences between MTL inﬁsh landings and SSB

In Fig. 3, various levels of differences between MTL in ﬁsh landings andSSBcan be seen for the subareas. Moreover, subareas such as IþII, V and VI (Fig. 3) had higherMTLinSSBthan that of landings after 2008, while other subareas (III, IV, VII and VIIIþIX) did not have higherMTLinSSBthan of landings (Fig. 3). Further- more,Fig. 3indicates thatMTLin landings in subareas III, VIII and VIIIþIX were always higher thanMTLinSSB. Also, the difference of MTL of these two mean trophic levels was remarkably large in subareas VIIIþIX (Fig. 3), especially after year 2005.

3.3. Categorization ofﬁshing subareas based on MTL in landing and differences between MTL in SSB and landings

Theﬁshing subareas could be classiﬁed into four groups based on theMTLin landings (high or low) and the difference between MTLinSSBandMTLin landings after 2008 (Table 3).

3.4. Distribution of SSB and landings among different trophic values (before and after 2008)

3.4.1. Subareas IþII

In subareas IþII, cod was the main species inSSBand landings.

Table 2

Fish stocks considered for mean trophic level analysis in each subarea.

Area (s) Fish stocks IþII Cod, Haddock, Saithe

III Cod (SDs 22e24), Herring IIIa and (SDs 22e24) Herring IIId (SD 30), Herring IIId (SDs 25e29) Herring IIId (28.1), IIId (SD 31), Sole IIIa IV Cod (IV,VIId, IIIa), Haddock (IV,IIIA (West)),

Herring (IV, VIId, IIIa West), Sole, Plaice, Whiting (IV, VIId), Sprat V Cod, Haddock, Saithe, Herring

VI Whiting (VIa), Herring (VIa North), Haddock (VIb) VII Cod (VIIe-k), Cod (VIIa), Herring (VIIa)

Sole (VIId), Sole (VIIf,g), Plaice (VIIe) VIIIþIX Sole (VIIIa,b), Horse Mackerel (IXa)

Hake (VIIIc, IXa)

Note:ﬁsh stocks were allocated to each subarea followingCardinale et al. (2013).

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The rise ofSSBin cod after 2008 was signiﬁcant and landings for cod also increased after 2008 (Fig. 4).

Please note: Section3.4is annexed (Annex 1) with this manu- script with similarﬁgures (Figs. 5e9) which illustrate MeanﬁshSSB (a) and landings (b) in tonnes (horizontal axis) in different trophic levels (vertical axis) before and after 2008 for subareas IþII, III, IV,

V, VI, VII and VIIIþIX.

3.5. Harvest rate ofﬁsh stocks

Among thefish stocks used for the analysis, the majority had a lower harvest rate after 2008, (Table 4). However, harvest rate did Fig. 2.Variations of Mean trophic levels (MTL) offish spawning stock biomass (SSB) and landings infishing subareas IþII, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIIIþIX.

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Fig. 3.Difference (D) betweenMTLinﬁsh landings andMTLin spawning stock biomass (SSB) inﬁshing subareas IþII, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIIIþIX.

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increase in someﬁsh stocks. The highest harvest rates were found in codﬁsheries in the North Sea (subarea IV) before and after 2008.

4. Discussion

SSB and landings are considered as important indicators in evaluating the status of commercialﬁsh stocks. Trophic level based indicators are also useful indicators to understand complex interactions between ﬁsheries and marine ecosystems (Pauly and Watson, 2005). In the present study, we attempted to use trophic status ofSSBand landings to categorize marine subareas in Europe.

Our analysis showed that theMTLof landings in subareas IþII, V and VIIIþIX were higher, while other subareas (III, IV, VI and VII) had lowerMTLlandings. Additionally,Jayasinghe et al. (2015)found similar results for these subareas while evaluating environmental status based on trophic levels and life history information onﬁshes.

As a step forward, we computedMTL inSSB in each subarea to compare with those ofﬁsh landings. The study revealed that subareas IþII and V had higherMTLin landings as well as higherMTL inSSBthanMTLin landings after 2008.

In thefirst group of subareas (IþII and V), the anthropogenic stresses on thefish stocks such as shipping, sea bed disturbances are not excessive (EEA, 2015), and perhaps these conditions may have supported the increase of fish biomasses. Subareas where higherMTLinSSBand landings are evident appear to be“safe”in terms offisheries.

The second group (Subareas VIIIþIX) had highMTLin landings, but not in SSB after 2008. This is probably due to by a severe dependence of thefishery on new recruits, a majority of immature individuals in the landings, inhibition of breeding and recruitments because of overexploitation over the past decades (Guenette and Gascuel, 2012). Here, the landings of high trophic level species, such as hake, increased after 2008.Guenette and Gascuel (2012) reported that extremely heavyfishing mortality in Bay of Biscay area (subarea VIII) before 2008, and it seems thatfishing pressure towards hake in these subareas is still high. In addition, the estimated harvest rate for hake in these subareas was 1.10 (present analysis) signifying that this stock is being overfished.

Subarea VI was grouped in the third category, which was having lowMTLinSSBand landings. However, in this subarea after 2008, MTLofSSBhas been higher than in landings perhaps due to the drop of landings specially whiting. Though theMTLin landings low, increasingMTLinSSBis a positive sign of recovery ofﬁsh stocks in this subarea.

The last category of subareas (III, IV and VII) had lowMTLin both landings and SSB after 2008. As such, these subareas can be considered as the poorest status ofﬁsh stocks in termsMTLs. The SSBhas not improved during the recent years and high trophic level species also was dominant in the landings. In these subareas, there was no prominence ofSSBfor cod, but for herrings bothSSBand landings increased after 2008, showing a dominance of low trophic species in subarea III. Similarly, subarea IV also had larger Table 3

Categorization ofﬁshing subareas andﬁsh stocks based inMTLin the landing and differences betweenMTLofSSBand landings after 2008.

High MTL(L) Low MTL(L)

MTL(SSB)>MTL(L)2008 e2013

IþII: Cod, Saithe, Haddock VI: Whiting (VIa), Haddock (VIb), Herring (VIa North) V: Cod, Saithe, Haddock, Herring

MTL(SSB)<MTL(L)2008 e2013

VIIIþIX: Hake (VIIIc, IXa), Horse Mackerel (IXa), Sole (VIIIa,b)

III: Cod (SDs 22e24), Sole (IIIa), Herring in IIIa and (SDs 22e24), IIId (SD 30), IIId (SDs 25e29), IIId (28.1)

IV: Cod (IV,VIId, IIIa), Whiting (IV,VIId), Haddock (IV,IIIA (West), Sole, Herring (IV, VIId, IIIa West) Plaice, Sprat,

VII: Cod in (VIIa), (VIIe-k), Sole in (VIId), (VIIf,g) Herring (VIIa), Plaice (VIIe)

0 1000000 2000000 3000000 3.56

3.61 4.29

(a - Prior to 2008)

0 500000

3.56 3.61 4.29

(b - Prior to 2008)

0 1000000 2000000 3000000 3.56

3.61 4.29

(a - AŌer 2008)

0 500000

3.56 3.61 4.29

(b -AŌer 2008)

Fig. 4.MeanﬁshSSB(a) and landings (b) in tonnes (horizontal axis) in different trophic levels (vertical axis) in before and after 2008 in subareas IþII.

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proportions of low trophic levelﬁsh species such as herring, plaice and sprat both inSSBand landings. The high tropic level species (cod) showed overﬁshing status even after 2008.Shannon et al.

(2014)andEmeis et al. (2015)reported that most of high trophic level species in the North Sea have already beenfished out. In subarea VII, even though landings of cod have dropped after 2008, no improvement could be seen inSSB. This is probably due to some other factors affecting recruitment and mortality of fishes like physical damage of sea floor (EEA, 2015), which is common in subarea VII (Foden et al., 2011). Furthermore, eutrophication is also common in this subarea (EEA, 2015), and has negative impacts on fish populations (HELCOM, 2009).

In the present analysis, we illustrated thatMTLinSSB offish species can be considered as an ecosystem-based indicator for assessing trophic structure of commercially importantfish communities (Rombouts et al., 2013). However, growth, development, reproduction, recruitment, migration, predation and natural mortality also affectSSBinfish stocks. According to theEEA (2015), in addition tofishing pressure, various qualitative descriptors of MSFD such as eutrophication (Descriptor 5), habitat separation, disturbances to seafloor (Descriptor 6), invasive species (Descriptor 2), and contaminants (Descriptor 8) cause negative impacts onfish populations. Moreover, global climatic changes have impacts on fish stocks (Brander, 2010; Arnason, 2012) affectingSSBand landings. Importantly, most of these pressures are being considered as qualitative descriptors of MSFD which will be helpful to improve environmental health.

Harvest Rate (HR) is considered as one of the best indicators assessing status ofSSBofﬁsh stocks (Probst and Oesterwind, 2014).

Piet et al. (2010) mentioned thatHR is suitable for commercial catches (landings) too. Most of the ﬁsh stocks in the present

analysis had lower HR after 2008 than before, indicating that management strategies implemented by ICES such as TACs, con- trolling fishing effort etc. have resulted in positive signs for rebuilding the fish stocks. However, somefish stocks are being harvested withHRof greater than unity, indicating that immature individuals are present in the landings. Even though someHRoffish stocks in some areas (like subareas VIII and IX) had improved after 2008, the MTLof landings andSSBstill recorded low. Therefore, further improvement offish stocks status is still needed. From the present analysis, it is possible to postulate thatMTLs inSSB and landings are also useful to be considered for implementing new management strategies. This is of particular importance because there are difficulties in assigning reference levels for indicators like HR(Piet et al., 2010). Nevertheless,Rosenberg (1995)suggested that 0.20 offishing rate of current level is appropriate to avoid declining offisheries after maximum harvest.Cardinale et al. (2013)have also given some suggestions and strategies to improvefish stocks in Europe, such as creating large marine reserves, specificfishing gear regulations, integrated maritime management, balanced harvest- ing and banning discards, etc.

Pauly and Palomares (2005) have shown that “ﬁshing down marine food webs”is a widespread trend in manyﬁsheries of the world, and European marine areas are no exception. This trend has been shown to take place in Portuguese seas (Baeta et al., 2009);

Icelandic waters (Valtysson and Pauly, 2003); Spain (Sanchez and Olaso, 2004) and the UK (Molfese et al., 2014). Prior to 2008,ﬁsh- ing pressure was high on higher trophic level species in some subareas of FAO Area 27, which resulted in the dominance of low trophic level species. The North Sea (sub area IV), where excessive ﬁshing has occurred in the past (Emeis et al., 2015), is an example in this study.

Table 4

Harvest rates (HR) ofﬁsh stocks before and after 2008 and stock status.

Subarea Fish stock HR Stock status

Before 2008 2009e2013

IþII Cod 1.688 0.429 Improved

Saithe 0.499 0.547 Not improved

Haddock 0.955 0.759 Improved

III Cod (SDs 22e24) 1.156 0.462 Improved

Sole IIIa 0.364 0.320 Improved

Herrings

IIIa and (SDs 22e24) 0.752 0.471 Improved

IIId (SD 30) 0.139 0.423 Not Improved

IIId (SDs 25e29) 0.286 0.724 Not Improved

IIId (28.1) 0.408 1.604 Not Improved

IV Cod (IV,VIId, IIIa) 2.018 1.032 Improved

Whiting (IV,VIId) 0.200 0.098 Improved

Haddock (IV,IIIA (West) 0.631 0.226 Improved

Sole 0.519 0.343 Improved

Herring (IV, VIId, IIIa West) 0.298 0.142 Improved

Plaice 0.601 0.240 Improved

Sprat 0.814 0.434 Improved

V Cod 0.332 0.196 Improved

Saithe 0.627 0.535 Improved

Haddock 0.553 0.413 Improved

Herring 0.249 0.120 Improved

VI Whiting (VIa) 0.419 0.123 Improved

Haddock (VIb) 0.650 0.269 Improved

Herring (VIa North) 0.245 0.249 Not improved

VII Cod (VIIa) 0.809 0.159 Improved

Cod (VIIe-k) 0.806 0.512 Improved

Sole (VIId) 0.420 0.386 Improved

Sole (VIIf,g) 0.421 0.331 Improved

Herring (VIIa) 0.458 0.053 Improved

Plaice (VIIe) 0.023 0.017 Improved

VIIIþIX Hake (VIIIc, IXa) 1.173 1.110 Improved

Horse Mackerel (IXa) 0.075 0.080 Not Improved

Sole (VIIIa,b) 0.426 0.295 Improved

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The study was mainly based onMTLinfishes to understand the status and the trends offish stocks in the European marine subareas.MTLhas been widely used as an indicator offisheries sustainability (Branch et al., 2010; Fey-Hofstede and Meesters, 2007;

Pauly et al., 1998) and biodiversity status (Foley, 2013; Pauly and Watson, 2005). In addition,MTL-based indicators are widely used to assess various marine environments (Baeta et al., 2009;

Jayasinghe et al., 2015). These indicators are listed as one of the indicators in European Environmental Agency-EEA (Foley, 2013) and other regional marine assessments (HELCOM, OSPAR). EEA demonstrated thatMTL(or Mean Trophic Index) as an inexpensive, simple and clear demonstration of environmental status that may be applied in all European seas (EEA, 2010). Even thoughMTLis not listed as an indicator in MSFD (EU, 2010), EEA suggested thatMTL would be an appropriate indicator to be used with the implementation of MSFD (EEA, 2010). Infisheries research, most of the previous studies used the landings data alone for MTL-based studies.Shannon et al. (2014)andGascuel et al. (2014)have shown the importance ofMTL-based studies combining with other vari- ables and approaches together with landings. Our analysis also showed possibility of usingMTLof bothSSBand landings to assess the status of the marine fisheries. Furthermore, the present approach is more realistic because it covers combined information of several commercially importantfish species than the conventional fisheries assessments which deal with “single species context”infisheries management.

5. Conclusions

In the Introduction we posed two research questions that were addressed in this study.

(i) Is there a change inﬁshing pressure over trophic levels in the context of the implementation of the policy instruments?

Fishing pressure towards high trophic level species seems to be decreasing in subareas I þII and V. This is apparent from the recoding of higher values ofMTLin landings and higherMTLvalues inSSBthanMTLin landings after 2008. On the other hand, subareas VIIIþIX had higherMTLin landings, but lowerMTLinSSBthan in landings after 2008. It seems this area is being highly overﬁshed.

Low values ofMTLs subareas III, IV and VII could be considered as overﬁshed stocks in these subareas.

(ii) Areﬁsh stocks showing signs of recovery since 2008?

Thefishing subareas were categorized according to theMTLin landings andSSBof thefish stocks after 2008. This study showed the importance of consideringMTLof both landings andSSBwhile evaluating environment and fish stocks. Most of the fish stocks have increasedSSBand harvest rate decreased since 2008 showing previous management plans were working onfisheries. Fish stocks appear to be recovering since 2008 in subarea VI. This is supported by values of highMTL values inSSBthan in landings after 2008.

However, no recovery is apparent in subareas III, IV and VII where lowMTLin landings and lowerMTLinSSBthan in landings after 2008 were reported. We identiﬁed some marine subareas were having lowMTLs in landings,SSBand someﬁsh stocks higherHR.

Contribution toﬁsheries and marine management

Both CFP and MSFD have provisions to work for improving environmental status of seas in order to achieve healthyﬁsh stocks.

The study demonstrates that Ecosystem Based Management should incorporate mean trophic levels of ﬁsh landings and spawning

stock biomass in the assessment of commercial species of ﬁsh.

Further, using this approach continuous evaluation of majorfish populations can be carried out in a robust way, with SSB and landings data. A future evaluation (2021) using our approach should show whether the implementation of CFP and MDFD improved the populations of commercial species offish. This will be a good indication that these policy instruments whether they are delivering the desired results towards improving the status of commercially important fish populations. The starkness of the approach presented in this study is therefore of importance for evaluatingfish stocks based on longer time series data before and after implementation of a nowel approach as presented in this study.

Acknowledgements

R.P.P.K. Jayasinghe thanks the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate in Marine and Coastal Management (MACOMA) for support. The work of Alice Newton was supported by the EC 7FP grant agree- ment 308392 (DEVOTES) (http://www.devotes-project.eu/). M.

Cardinale (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) provided information on ICES data reports. We also wish to thank Mr. R.P.K.C.

Rajapakse, Department of Zoology and Environmental Manage- ment, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka for his technical support in preparingﬁgures.

Appendix A. Supplementary data

Supplementary data related to this article can be found athttp://

dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2016.07.002.

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